Personal computers can execute programs that display visual presentations such as motion pictures. Devices such as scanners and digital cameras enable computer users to capture images, load them into their computers, and view them using output devices such as monitors or printers. Furthermore, computers users can share pictures with friends over communications networks by using e-mail. As loading, manipulating, and viewing visual images on personal computers becomes easier and more popular, computer users may wish to create more sophisticated presentations of these images. For example, computer users may wish to create a visual presentation that zooms into or away from a location or that pans around a location. The visual presentation could be in the form of a motion picture, a vertical morph, or a holograph.
Personal computers can display such visual presentations, but users face significant difficulties when trying to create them. Creating the visual presentation requires accessing a number of pictures of the location, modifying them, arranging them, and combining them. Performing these steps requires a high degree of technical knowledge that most computer users do not possess. Furthermore, performing these steps is time-consuming, even for a computer user who has a high level of technical ability. Therefore, an imaging service is needed to perform the technically difficult and time-consuming tasks associated with automating the display of a plurality of images to create a visual presentation.